Trending

Maggie LaMaack on Twitter, City Pages and Taylor Swift

This week my guest is the hilarious Twitter enthusiast and P.R. award winner Maggie LaMaack. I had only met her a couple times in passing here or there, but she seemed cool and funny so I asked her to come chat. We had lots of fun talking about Taylor Swift, social media and how to write about it all.

What made you want to get into writing? What books/ authors did you love as a kid?

I read a ton as a kid — A lot more than I do now, which kind of makes me sad. I read things like Pride and Prejudice and The Perks of Being a Wallflowerto feel super alt (I know this isn’t alt now), but what I loved the most was the more fluffy stuff. The Harry Potter series came out while I was growing up and I’ve probably read those books about 10 times. I also loved Nicolas Sparks and dumb cheesy love stories like that. I will say that my middle school librarian once told my mom I was reading a book that was too “advanced” for my age level, and I felt like a super badass sixth grader. I think there was sex in it or something.

I had a really great writing/english teacher in high school, and I think she helped me realize writing was something that came semi-naturally to me. So, she probably had a lot to do with me feeling confident enough to eventually call myself a writer. I also wrote a book in fifth grade called “Twas the Night After Thanksgiving.” It was a story about Black Friday told in the format of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” It may be my masterpiece.Do you see major differences between media? Or do you think literature/Twitter/songwriting and movies are more similar than we think?
That’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought about it before, but I guess they are kind of the same. It depends on the person using the platforms, but I think all of them are best used when people are telling some sort of story. Maybe I just like stories and have a short attention span otherwise, but a Twitter account can suck me in just as much as a book or a song. I think Twitter and songwriting possibly reveal a little more about their author, but I suppose people play characters on Twitter quite often, and people write songs about things outside their life. It’s all just #content packaged in different ways, right?What would be your dream writing gig? Why?
When I was in high school I wanted to be the editor of Vogue. Proof of this is available in the incredibly embarrassing high school yearbook senior area where I also list my favorite band as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I think now I would be most interested in writing about the Internet for some flashy publication. Mostly just so my parents could say something like “Yeah, my daughter works at The New York Times,” to all their friends. Wouldn’t that be cool? (This would actually serve my ego much more than my parents). I think the most important part of writing for me is my ability to have a point of view and sound like myself when I write, so I’m not really sure if I could ever do anything super serious. That being said, if you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I’m obsessed with Today in Tabs. I think Rusty Foster is hilarious and smart and if I could be more like any writer on the Internet it would probably be him.